Instructor’s manual to accompany BUSINESS COMMUNICATION developing leaders for a networked world 2nd edition

SLIDE 3-1 SLIDE 3-2 This chapter covers the following topics: principles of team communication; approaches to effective meetings; effective virtual teams; group writing strategies; and

BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

Test Bank Business Communication Developing Leaders for a

Networked World 2nd Edition Peter Cardon Download:

https://testbankarea.com/download/business-communication-developing-leaders-networked-world-2nd-edition-test-bank-peter-cardon/

Chapter 3:

Team Communication and Difficult

Conversations

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SLIDE 3-2

This chapter covers the following topics: principles

of team communication; approaches to effective meetings; effective virtual teams; group writing strategies; and handling difficult conversations

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LO3.1 Explain the principles of team

communication in high-performing teams

LO3.2 Describe and demonstrate approaches to

planning, running, and following up on meetings

LO3.3 Explain the principles of effective virtual

team communication

LO3.4 Describe strategies for effective group

writing

LO3.5 Explain basic principles for handling difficult

conversations

Teams can take many forms Some teams are formally and permanently organized and titled

(such as the marketing team) Other teams are

temporarily formed for completing a project or an activity (i.e., project team, committee) The most common functions of teams are handling special projects, completing the work of particular departments, developing internal systems

innovations, creating customer-service

innovations, developing product innovations, engaging in employee development, and reducing time to market for products and services

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In a recent survey, business professionals cited ineffective communication (66 percent) as the biggest barrier to team effectiveness Other major barriers included lack of effective chartering and goal setting (56 percent), lack of clarity and understanding of roles (47 percent), low morale (44 percent), low productivity (42 percent), and lack of trust (36 percent) All of these factors relate to communication competencies

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Similarly, when ranking the most frustrating aspects of being part of a team, business

professionals cite the following: ineffective use of meeting time (54 percent), ineffective

communication among team members (50 percent), lack of accountability (47 percent), individuals who don’t complete assignments (44 percent), and lack of preparation in meetings (41 percent) All of these factors in turn relate to communication competencies

Your teams will perform far better if they follow the basic principles of team communication, all of which depend on a strong listening-centered approach Work in teams is among the most researched aspects of work performance, and hundreds of studies have supported each of the following principles:

 Teams should focus first and foremost on performance

 Teams go through four natural stages to reach high performance

 Effective teams build a work culture around values, norms, and goals

 Effective teams meet often

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Some additional principles are:

 Effective teams embrace differing viewpoints and conflict

 Effective teams find out the communication styles and preferences of one another

 Effective teams provide a lot of positive feedback and evaluate their performance often

 Effective teams feel a common sense of

purpose

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Nearly all high-performing teams go through four stages before they maximize their performance In best-case scenarios, work teams take roughly six

to seven months to reach this level (see Figure 3.1) Typically, leaders become less directive and more consultative as the team progresses through the stages: forming, storming, norming, and performing

In the forming stage (months 1 and 2), team

members focus on gaining acceptance and

avoiding conflict In some ways, this stage is a honeymoon period in which team members get to know one another

In the storming stage (months 2 and 3), team

members open up with their competing ideas about how the team should approach work This stage is typically the least productive, since team members are attempting to make sense of

uncertain roles, goals, and accountabilities

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In the norming stage (months 4 and 5), the team

arrives at a work plan, including the roles, goals, and accountabilities

In the performing stage (months 6 and 7), teams

operate efficiently toward accomplishing their goals They have evolved to a level where they can transform disagreement and conflict into

consensus for future action

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Organizations and teams constantly attempt to

foster unity and high performance Team culture

refers to a set of shared perceptions and

commitment to collective values, norms, roles, responsibilities, and goals Typically, teams rapidly develop such shared perceptions and

commitment during the norming stage Only at the performing stage do these shared perceptions and commitments lead to high productivity

One way that high-performing teams ensure they develop and live up to shared values, norms, and goals is to create a team charter The team charter provides direction to the team in how it functions

to meet shared objectives Common elements of team charters include purpose or mission

statements, values, goals, team member roles (including leadership), tasks, ground rules,

communication protocol, meeting protocol, decision-making rules, conflict resolution, and feedback mechanisms In Figure 3.2 you can see

an abbreviated team charter created by the Prestigio marketing team It contains many

features common to team charters

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One way teams can welcome new ideas is to embrace diversity Increasingly, research shows that diversity brings better business returns Diversity comes in two forms: inherent and

acquired Inherent diversity involves traits such as

age, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation

Acquired diversity involves traits you acquire

through experience, such as customer service experience, retail experience, or engineering experience Having both types of diversity is called

2-D diversity

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The following behaviors help drive acquired diversity: (1) making sure everyone is heard; (2) making it safe to let team members express novel ideas; (3) giving team members decision-making authority; (4) sharing credit; (5) giving useful feedback; and (6) putting feedback into action In short, these behaviors drive an innovative,

“speak-up culture.”

Two principles that team members use to

embrace and respond to differing viewpoints are

disassociation and association Disassociation is a

process by which professionals accept critique of their ideas without taking it personally and

becoming defensive On the other hand,

association is the psychological bonding that

occurs between people and their ideas Since the purpose of most meetings and team

communication is to increase agreement about roles, goals, and accountabilities and to increase the group’s sense of purpose, team members should seek association by the end of a meeting or team communication Generally, high-performing teams go through repeated cycles of

disassociation and association That is, they suspend attachment to ideas in the initial

discussion phase and then attach themselves to ideas as they commit to mutually developed goals and related action items (see Figure 3.3)

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Running effective meetings starts with planning Planning for meetings requires strategy,

scheduling, and coordination At a minimum, you should answer the following questions in your preparations:

 What is the purpose of the meeting? What outcomes do I expect?

 Who should attend?

 When should the meeting be scheduled?

 What roles and responsibilities should people

at the meeting have?

 What will be the agenda?

Some additional questions to ask are:

 What materials should I distribute prior to the meeting?

 When and how should I invite others?

 What logistical issues do I need to take care

of (reserving rooms, getting equipment, printing materials)?

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Think about how scheduling will impact

productivity Generally, you should avoid

meetings, especially brainstorming meetings, during the least productive times of the day (usually the afternoon) Typically, most employees are at their best performance in the morning (see Figure 3.5)

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As you plan, consider the type of meeting you want Meetings can be broadly categorized as coordination meetings or problem-solving

meetings Coordination meetings primarily focus

on discussing roles, goals, and accountabilities

Problem-solving meetings typically involve

brainstorming about how to address and solve a particular work problem In actuality, nearly all meetings involve both coordination and problem solving However, coordination meetings typically include many agenda items with a reasonable expectation of accomplishing each item in the allocated time Problem-solving meetings, by contrast, involve more fluid issues that are less easily classified as discrete agenda items and that are less easily given time allotments

Agendas provide structure for meetings For most meetings, preparing and distributing an agenda ahead of time allows each meeting participant to form expectations and prepare Most agendas should include items to be covered, time frames, goals and/or expected outcomes, roles, and materials needed You can foster more effective meetings by getting others involved in the

agenda-creation process You can also consider assigning roles

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As you develop the agenda, pay attention to the ordering of items so that it flows much as you would expect other written communications to flow from point to point Also, consider placing those agenda items of most importance near the beginning This way, if items take longer than expected and you are forced to shelve some items, you have addressed the highest-priority items See Figure 3.6 for an agenda for the

Prestigio marketing team

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If you’ve planned and prepared well for the meeting, you are in a great position to carry out your meeting objectives Ideally, you’ve provided clear expectations for meeting participants—what they should have done before the meeting and what they can expect in terms of content and length of the meeting Once the meeting arrives, you have several options for achieving productive outcomes:

 Create tradition, culture, and variety

 Set expectations and follow the agenda

 Encourage participation and expression of ideas

 Build consensus and a plan of action

 Close the meeting

 Deal with difficult people

One priority should be to end the meeting on time Before ending the meeting, summarize what you have accomplished In just a few minutes, you can recap action items that the team has agreed

on After a meeting ends (even for those you do not lead), you should mentally evaluate your performance Consider these questions:

 How much information, analysis, and

interpretation did I provide?

 Did I communicate my ideas even if they conflicted with someone else’s?

 Did I participate in the implementation of the

timeline? Did I meet deadlines?

 Did I facilitate the decision-making process?

Or did I just go with the flow?

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Follow up by distributing the minutes of the meeting (as a memo, in an email, in a meetings folder on the corporate intranet, or as part of a team blog or wiki) Minutes of the meeting should include the date and time, team members

present, decisions, key discussion points, open issues, and action items and related deadlines You can also include the names of people who were invited but were absent and the names of people with assigned roles (such as the note-taker)

The minutes serve as a record of what your team accomplished in the meeting Figure 3.7 provides

an example of meeting minutes

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Organizations increasingly rely on virtual teams to complete projects, initiatives, and a variety of other tasks These virtual teams generally consist

of team members located at various offices (including home offices) and rely almost entirely

on virtual technologies to work with one another One recent survey showed that about 80 percent

of professionals in multinational companies report working on a team that is located in different locations In fact, 64 percent of these

professionals work with team members located in other countries

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In addition to the principles for working effectively

in traditional teams, consider the following tips when working in virtual teams:

 Focus on building trust at each stage of your virtual team

 Meet in person if possible

 Get to know one another

 Use collaborative technologies

 Choose an active team leader

Compared to traditional teams, virtual teams typically find it more challenging to maintain trust over the duration of their work together

Typically, you can take actions across the entire life cycle of a virtual team that bolster your credibility and help establish trust within your virtual team with a focus on competence, caring, and character In Table 3.1 you can see various strategies for displaying competence, caring, and character at each stage of virtual teamwork to build and maintain trust within the team

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Consider the following tips to make your virtual meetings more productive:

 Start the meeting with social chat

 Start with a contentious question

 Ask “what do you think about” questions

 Make sure each team member is involved

 Articulate views precisely

 Take minutes in real time

 Focus on your teammates and avoid

multitasking

 Use video when possible

Creating a strong, precise, and coherent

document with many writers is challenging As you write with teams or other groups, consider applying the following tips:

 Start right away

 Work together at the planning stage

 Make sure your roles and contributions are fair

 Stay flexible and open

 Meet in real time consistently and ensure the writing reflects the views of the group

 Discuss how you will edit the document together

 Consider a single group member to polish the final version and ensure a consistent voice

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Business professionals routinely—often on a daily basis—encounter difficult conversations,

especially when working in teams and

collaborating with others Difficult conversations are approached with apprehension, nervousness, anxiety, and even fear Difficult conversations often center on disagreements, conflict, and bad news Many people prefer to avoid difficult conversations because they want to avoid hurting the feelings of others, want to avoid conflict, or for other reasons